YAV Interactive Media
Brederodestraat 47
2042 BB Zandvoort
The Netherlands
CONTACT:
Stephanie Yavelow, Marketing Director
voice: +31-23-571-6282
fax: +31-23-571-6245
info@yav.com
http://www.yav.com
CD-ROM DEVELOPED BY YAV WINS DANISH DESIGN CENTRE CD-ROM PRIZE
The Netherlands -- February 23, 1998 -- The Danish Design Centre has awarded the "ID98" prize for excellent industrial design to the CD-ROM developed by YAV Interactive Media for LEGO®. LEGO calls the CD-ROM "the first CD-ROM in the LEGO universe." The Danish Design Centre jury commented, "Unlike many computergames the LEGO programme uses the technology in a way that stimulates physical activity, and thus a new dimension of realism, knowledge and imagination is added to playing with the LEGO bricks." The CD-ROM, part of the LEGO Technic series, accompanies their yellow submarine model (number 8299) released worldwide in January 1997 and available in the United States in the fall. YAV (http://www.yav.com) has been producing interactive media for 12 years.
The CD-ROM features animated building instructions for seven models, LEGO Technic tips and tricks, fact-sheets about the models and underwater life, action video clips of the models, an interactive LEGO Technic catalog, and more. The CD-ROM is not meant to be a substitute for playing with actual LEGO bricks but to add a new dimension to LEGO play. The CD-ROM developed for LEGO by YAV is LEGO's first and should not be confused with a CD-ROM game that licensed LEGO components and was released by a third party in late 1997.
Led by award-winning composer and author Christopher Yavelow (photo), YAV programmed this cross-platform (Mac O/S, Windows 3.11, Windows 95) "edu-venture" using content provided by LEGO's new "SPU-Darwin" project in Denmark and animators from the U.K. Besides the programming, YAV post-processed all video, animations, graphics, sound, and text found on the CD-ROM and also co-developed its human factors. YAV created custom tools to help compress over a million frames for the product's more than 500 QuickTime movies. Many of the tools used to create the CD-ROM were developed with the aid of an earlier YAV product, YAV's RAD Tools (RAD = Rapid Application Development), which allowed the completion of the entire CD-ROM in less than five months.
Christopher Yavelow, YAV's president and chief creative director, has received dozens of awards for his music as well as the Computer Press Association's "Best Advanced How-To Book" award for his "Macworld Music and Sound Bible." Acclaimed in 1994 for launching the first opera into cyberspace, he has authored or co-authored landmark interactive media products since the mid-80s for clients such as Apple Computer (Vox Vivarium), Coda Music Software (Finale Guided Tour), Verbum Magazine (Verbum Interactive CD-ROM), Random House (Multimedia PowerTools), and A-R Editions (Experiments in Musical Intelligence).
Before the LEGO CD-ROM, Yavelow directed the production of the first CD-ROM for the popular VPRO Television Network in the Netherlands. Besides being the first cross-platform CD-ROM created with Macromedia's Director software, the VPRO Digital Guide was the first CD-ROM to synchronize itself to a month of television programming.
YAV Interactive Media recently created the interactive music exhibit "The Music is the Message" for the newMetropolis Science and Technology Center, which opened in the Netherlands in June 1997. The building, designed by Erasmus Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano -- designer of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, rises 90 meters above the water next to Amsterdam Central Station. The exhibit is built upon the YAV Music Engine, a new technology that uses computer-simulated creativity to allow anyone to compose music. A CD-ROM version of the exhibit is slated for Summer 1997.
The following URLs provide additional information:
World Wide Web site of YAV Interactive Media: http://www.yav.com
Representative Interactive Media Portfolio: http://www.yav.com/docs/Media.html
YAV Client List: http://www.yav.com/docs/Clients.html
Photo of Christopher Yavelow: http://www.yav.com/images/sbYAV.jpeg
LEGO maintains information about this CD-ROM at: http://www.LEGO.com/catalog/eur/product.asp?number=8299
The Danish Design Center's press release about the ID98 award is at: http://www.ddc.dk/UK/news/pressReleases/ID98.html
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